Letters from Kayfabe

[JRH]

They briefly touched on this, but the way interviews changed should also be noted. As the 80s went on, the faces became more and more superheroic in their promos (aside from Jake Roberts, who kept his subtle interview style) while the heels became more and more cartoonishly heel. Granted, this arguably started with Savage and Piper (both of whom had an over the top style as both heels and faces), but compare some of Hogan's early promos from 84 or 85 to his infamous WM4 interview about him destroying trump plaza and the hulkamaniacs jumping onto his back, or Jimmy Hart going from flashy when he first came in into a screaming maniac by the end of the 80s/early 90s.

Also, I dont have twitter, but i do have a question for the mailbag (about Lord Alfred Hayes inexplicably being a heel broadcaster in 93-4), is there a way to send a question without twitter?

[cheapshot]

You can PM us your questions on here if you don't use twitter dot com.

[WingedEagle]

Listened to the first 2 episodes today and found them an enjoyable breeze. Nice to have something in the mix that doesn't require a marathon session or callbacks to my specific thoughts on older matches and angles, even if I love those as well. Great production here as well.

[JerryvonKramer]

Episode 3:

http://placetobenation.com/letters-from-kayfabe-3/

 

 

Allan and Parv once again delve, quite literally, into some of the lesser known corners of the WWF.

 

1. The Mailbag: Ron Garvin after Royal Rumble 90 / Tito Santana-Virgil relationship / Col. Mustafa in 92

 

2. The Event Center with JT Rozzero: Big changes in talent and broadcasting arrangements in 1996

 

3. The Long Topic: Rogers' Corner / Victory Corner wih Roger deBord

 

To write in to the mailbag, tweet @allan_cheapshot or @JerryvonK

 

Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS1QYjCSmymiX0epEWAgRLn1JYdx-mCFQ

Dailymotion supplemental: http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x4nvn8_jerryvonk_letters-from-kayfabe-3/1#video=x42tuj

[The Chief]

Teaming with jobbers is the lowest of the low. As a kid I always thought name guys could do the occasional job but if you were actually put in a team with a jobber you were the absolute dirt worst and the company thought nothing of you. Total zero status. I remember Skinner did this within a few months of debuting!

 

Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to this every week!

[Ricky Jackson]

The talk about the Tito and Virgil team was hilarious. TVC: Tito-Virgil Connection 4 Life!

[Matt D]

I need to catch up and hear this to figure that one out. It wasn't one of mine. I remember Tito saving him after Repo Man got involved and then they teamed up at This Tuesday in Texas, but after that Tito moved into the Dibiase feud (including the Manager Cam Sherri match) and I thought that was the end of it.

[PeteF3]

Hercules definitely did the Jobbers Tour. What's forgotten now is that the team with Roma started *before* they both turned heel.

 

Then there's this result from the 6/17/90 Challenge:

The Honkytonk Man & Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Hillbilly Jim & Randy Fox at the 3-minute mark when Valentine pinned Fox following a double back suplex; during the bout, Rhythm & Blues and Jimmy Hart cut an insert promo on the Bushwhackers

 

Jim's a surprising name to be doing that duty--he did plenty of jobs later in his WWF career but was still kind of a made man in the company.

 

Some more stuff on the Tito/Virgil combination:

 

- The Virgil/DiBiase thing continued into 1994 until Virgil was finally done with the company. His last program was a feud with Nikolai Volkoff, as he ran in to save the 1-2-3 Kid from a post-match attack by Volkoff and DiBiase and was out to try to "free" Nikolai from DiBiase's grasp.

 

- I was not in Huntington that night, but I was at the Challenge taping in Columbus the night before. It had these feature bouts, many of which were repeated the next night:

- Rick & Scott Steiner winning the WWF tag titles from Money Inc. (this was the opener--quite an improvement over King/Doll over Matador/Virgil)

- Randy Savage over Doink by reverse decision (Coliseum Video)

- Ted DiBiase over Bart Gunn (All-American exclusive)

- Lex Luger over Owen Hart (Mania exclusive)

- Undertaker over Giant Gonzalez by DQ

- Yokozuna over Duggan

- Bam Bam Bigelow & the Headshrinkers over Tatanka & the Smoking Gunns (Challenge)

- Mr. Hughes over Marty Jannetty (Challenge)

- Hogan & Beefcake over Money Inc. with Sgt. Slaughter as the guest referee

- A Men on a Mission squash, which I believe was their in-ring debut--they were definitely brand-new

 

...

 

- And the biggest dream match of them all, a match that only aired on TSN in Canada: Tito Santana DEFEATED Virgil. Both men worked babyface and shook hands afterward. Minds were blown on that night, I can assure you.

 

By this point the WWF was actively sprinkling feature bouts in-between the endless parade of squashes at TV tapings, both for Coliseum Video and just for the live audience, to keep crowds active. In addition they were running more feature bouts than ever before for syndie TV, something that I believe may have been the work of Jim Ross (the 6-man I listed here actually got the "we're out of time!" treatment on TV and was continued the following week).

 

Rex King & Steve Doll were very close to becoming Well Dunn at this point--their match the next night may have been either a tryout or them actively finalizing their gimmick, depending on when they actually signed. Still, losing to Well Dunn wasn't much an improvement, as they were probably sub-Bolsheviks on the all-time heel tag team totem pole.

[Ricky Jackson]

Man, TSN getting a lot of talk around here today. Good chance I saw that Tito vs Virgil match back in the day, I was such a depraved wrestling junkie in the early 90s I would watch anything. (I used to "listen" to scrambled WCW shows on TBS for probably two years before my parents finally upgraded our cable package in early 94) That TSN WWF show (I believe called simply "TSN Wrestling") was dire, like D-show levels. Don't remember much about it other than they aired a 40 man battle royal once. (WWF did a series of those in 1992) TSN aired a motley crew of wrestling shows during its early years, including the WCW D-show Power Hour, dying days AWA, a several weeks behind Stampede show, Pro Wrestling Plus, and I believe CNWA. (post Stampede show featuring a young Chris Jericho and Lance Storm)

 

I smell a future podcast

[JRH]

Actually, I think they were teasing a Garvin/Rick Martel feud in late summer 1990, i know it was talked about in WWF Magazine, but it only led to one match on All-American where Martel won. I believe the last Garvin TV match was against Sgt. Slaughter in September or October. Also, i cant wait for next week's discussion on Coliseum video.

[JerryvonKramer]

I hope people like the CHV discussion next week, one of my principal wrestling loves.

 

Some tremendous additional info here re: Virgil / Tito from PeteF and Kelly. Can't believe I missed their Mega Powers explode match! Who went over there?

 

RE: Garvin / Martel feud - I find that really surprising considering him losing to Ryhthm n Blues in 3 mins and teaming with pure jobbers.

 

Keep questions coming in folks. Quite a big backlog now but we will get to them all eventually. Il glad people seem to be enjoying the show in the spirit it was intended.

[The Chief]

RE: Virgil

 

For some reason, Virgil was always prominently featured in the WWF Magazine. I remember an article on a Virgil vs. Kato match from Prime Time in 1991 that I shit you not was at least 3 pages. Even as an eight year old I thought that was dull as fuck and would rather read text books.

 

Does anyone remember Virgil's feud with WWF Magazine? This was around 1993 so Virgil hadn't been relevant in a long time. They did an angle where Virgil was pissed that he wasn't talked about in WWF Magazine anymore. The Magazine said that Virgil needed to stop whining and pick up some wins. Then they would do tongue-in-cheek praise for Virgil, like dedicating an entire page to a picture of him clotheslining a jobber.

[JerryvonKramer]

The idea of a 1993 Virgil feuding with WWF magazine is one of the most incredible things conceivable. Was this just in the mag or was it mentioned on air?

[PeteF3]

Just in the mag. This was one of many changes and magazine-only stories that Vince Russo was writing to amuse himself due to his disillusionment with the on-air product.

[The Russian Daydream]

On the subject of WWF magazine's weird obsession with Virgil, I remember a feature, probably around the beginning of 1994, where Bob Backlund talked about healthy eating. One of the accompanying pictures featured Bob showing Virgil (for no apparent reason) how to put carrots into a blender. The resulting smoothie looked utterly disgusting by the way.

[Matt D]

For what it's worth, there are a few jobber matches in 1992 where Virgil just kills the guy he's in the ring with.

[JRH]

Speaking of jobbers teaming with big names, i came upon a 1990 match where Tito Santana teaming with Jim Brunzell against Demolition. Not as bad, but there's also a 1989 handicap match with Tito and Jim Powers against Andre the Giant.

[Matt D]

That's Tito's lowest moment.

[JerryvonKramer]

No, no, we document Tito's lowest moment on the show. That fateful night at the Huntington Civic Arena on June 15th, 1993.

 

I'd take a handicap match against Andre over a dark match losing effort against a pre-debut Well Dunn any day of the week!

[Matt D]

Pre-Matador, I meant.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yeah can't think of anything comparable pre-matador. If we were making a theoretical bottom 5, maybe making burritos for Lord Al on TNT only for him to shit all over Mexican food would also be down there.

 

As another aside re: Tito vs. Ted, they faced each other in Amarillo in 79, in WWF in 79, in Mid-South in 83 and then many times 87-93 WWF. Just thought it was interesting they crossed paths as opponents in four different times and places. Ted's penultimate match on American soil was against Tito on October 28th, 93 at the Free Funk for All. I know he worked vs. Terry two nights later, but for some reason the databases don't like that one (is on 93 yearbook).

[Matt D]

Have you seen Andre vs Tito from Europe?

[Bigelow34]

That Virgil/WWF Magazine feud ended with Virgil getting a "cover" which was actually the back of the magazine. Great random nonsense.

[JerryvonKramer]

Episode 4:

 

http://placetobenation.com/letters-from-kayfabe-4/

 

 

Allan and Parv tackle more mailbag questions and re-live some memories of growing up with Coliseum Home Video.

 

1. The Mailbag: Vince acknowledging SMW in 93 / Jim Brunzell after the Killer Bees / Hercules vs. Sid

2. The Event Center with JT Rozzero: Battle Royal for vacant Intercontinental title in October 93

3. The Long Topic: Coliseum Home Video

 

To write in to the mailbag, tweet @allan_cheapshot or @JerryvonK

 

Follow along on YouTube:

[Grimmas]

CHV is my jam, can't wait to hear you folks go on about it.